"The West is facing a concerted effort by Islamic jihadists, the motives and goals of whom are largely ignored by the Western media, to destroy the West and bring it forcibly into the Islamic world -- and to commit violence to that end even while their overall goal remains out of reach. That effort goes under the general rubric of jihad."-- Robert Spencer

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Moussaoui: Life Without Parole

John Gacy (33 victims), Ted Bundy (over 30), Jeffrey Dahmer (17), and Timothy McVeigh (169) were all executed in US prisons. But the life of Zacarias Moussaoui, who assisted in the murder of 2,986 victims, will be spared.

Moussaoui, who spent much of his two-month trial cursing America, blessing al-Qaida and mocking the suffering of 9/11 victims, offered one more taunt after the jury reached its verdict Wednesday: "America, you lost. ... I won," he proclaimed, clapping his hands as he was escorted from the courtroom.

The jury rejected two key defense arguments — that Moussaoui suffers a mental illness and that executing him would make him a martyr. No jurors indicated on the verdict form that they gave any weight to those arguments.

On one hand, Josef Stalin's math comes to mind: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

On the other hand, Moussaoui may be spared the death penalty -- but so will the American public be spared the interminable, vexatious appeals process that denies closure and justice to so many victims' families.

If taxpayer funding of this animal's continued existence is the price of avoiding years of gushing MSM hagiographies disguised as reports of some miniscule procedural development, so be it.